The Long Way Home
by Soul Jelly
Summary: Lyoko is long gone and everyone has moved on, or so it seems. Fighting melancholy and a waning sense of purpose, Odd seeks answers in the company of old friends. Odd, Aelita, Jeremie.
1. arriving

_A/N: Not a new story by any means, just an old piece written back in the day, frantically scribbled by hand one summer as scene after scene fell into my head, and only finally typed up years later._

 _This fic still feels a little raw to me - like a collection of character studies and flashbacks, tied together with only a loose thread of narrative - but I like to think that complements the themes; Odd's depression, twenty-something ennui, his sense of abandonment and his long-buried feelings. With a few years of authorial hindsight, I'd deem his angst levels somewhat excessive, but I was channelling a lot of those emotions through him when I wrote this fic, haha. I hope anyone who reads this little jaunt enjoys it. Unrefined as it is, I'm happy to finally have the story out there. One more thing to note: this fic is the one most strongly connected to other stories within my own Code Lyoko canon, via small references._

 _Thanks for reading!_

* * *

 **The Long Way Home**

* * *

"You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you."

\- E.M. Forster, _A Room With A View_

* * *

It was cold, rainy and nearing midnight when Odd arrived on their doorstep.

Aelita saw him first, a blurry silhouette against the frosted glass of the front door, which she opened to find Odd with his finger poised an inch from the buzzer. He started, rodent-like in the sudden glare of light from the hallway, and stared at Aelita's polished pink toenails as he jammed both hands into his pockets.

"Hey," he began. He shuffled uncomfortably in place drawing his suitcase into hiding against the backs of his knees, guilty about the hopeful expectation that they would let him in. He looked more of a stray than Kiwi did – the dog had already crossed the threshold and was sniffing curiously at a fake potted plant in the hallway. It shook itself suddenly, a sharp movement that sent raindrops and wet dog odour careening towards the walls and spattering Aelita's calves.

She wouldn't let Odd say anything more until he'd stepped inside and peeled himself out of his sodden jacket, stained dark berry purple with rain, after which she flung her arms around him. He moved his cold, spread palms lightly to her back, relaxing after a moment into warmth incomparable to that of the wood-panelled hallway.

"Odd!" she exclaimed when at last she drew back from him, with a smile that didn't stay long as she took the measure of him, soaking and shivering. His hair was long and plastered flatly to his skull, the space beneath his eyes a mockery of the signature colour he so often wore. "You look... is everything okay?"

He shrugged off the question, head still as his gaze flickered over his shoulder towards his now entirely too conspicuous suitcase.

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't... important." The words left him in a rush, already touched with untruthfulness, uncertainty, his tone pleading and serious. "Could I maybe crash here for a while?"

Aelita blinked hard, the motion buying time whilst she tried to figure out just what was happening, but it was all too much to process in the space of a few seconds. There was no question though; Odd would always be welcome here. All of them were. "Of course," she said. "Jérémie will be glad to-"

As though on cue, Jérémie made his appearance at the top of the stairs, barefoot and shirtless and clearly just having stepped into the jeans settled on his hips, their fly and button undone.

"Aelita, are you coming to- oh." His mouth gaped slightly, slack with sleep and surprise, one hand lightly on the banister as the other pressed his glasses onto his face. He glanced at the clock on the wall, as though to confirm to himself that yes, there was something untimely and unexpected about this visit. He stepped down into the full light of the hallway, and his greeting was a question, though not a hostile one.

"Odd?"

"Her, Jér."

"Wow. You look terrible." At a sharp glance from Aelita, he hastily amended himself. "I-I mean, this is so unexpected, it's been a while, we were wondering about you, you know... Come in, I'll make some coffee..."

He led the way to the kitchen, attempting a subtle gesture to Aelita, and the short stride from the hall was filled with a silent conversation, the kind couples develop the ability to have with their eyes, and that everyone present will make great effort to pretend they're not eavesdropping on. Odd, no exception, trailed slightly after him, and busied himself with pretending to keep an eye on Kiwi. Aelita's hand skimmed Jérémie's bare shoulder and with a sudden inward jolt Odd took, at last, full measure of the situation – the near-lack of clothing beneath Aelita's robe, the casual indecency of the silk garment covering, just barely, the tanned skin of her thigh. Jérémie, hair mussed and demeanour distracted.

Odd rode on a wave of sudden mortification towards a kitchen chair, hid the reason for his flushed face in the steam of a coffee mug placed suddenly before him. He opened his mouth to apologise, found himself taking a grateful gulp of the hot drink instead, and opted after that for the slightly less exhausting option of uncomfortable silence.

"So, Odd..." Jérémie and Aelita took their own seats at the small rounded table, too homely and intimate in the spacious, modern kitchen. This time the soundless communication between them – _should we ask him? A suitcase? Do you think something's happened?_ \- went unnoticed by the subject.

"So.." Jérémie began again, clearing his throat. "How have you been- I mean, do you want to, uh..."

With a great effort Odd tore his gaze from the intricate patterns of coffee mug foam and looked at them. They were back to being Jérémie and Aelita, as opposed to JérémieandAelita, a careful space between his chair and hers. He wouldn't be surprised, though, to look beneath the table and spot clasped hands or a palm spread lightly against a thigh. They were always like that, intimate only where no one else could see them. It made Odd distinctly uncomfortable now, adding weight to the already awkward bulk of his arrival.

His head snapped up. He'd zoned out again and he was exhausted, but realised suddenly that he couldn't stomach the coffee. Had he the energy, he would stand up and leave, walk out of the door back into the night but the resolve it had taken to get here had drained him, and now he was trapped in on all sides by consequences.

"Sorry, sorry," he managed. "I'm just... tired, you know? One of those days. If you don't want me here, it's fine..."

"I told you Odd, you're welcome here any time. Any of you." Aelita's hand slipped out across the table to cover his. He shivered.

"Aelita's right," Jérémie added. "Listen, the spare rooms are made up already," - they had two spare rooms, Odd remembered, two spare rooms in their own house with a mortgage paid at twenty three years old; what did that feel like? He wondered - "just get some rest and we can talk things over in the morning."

Gratefully, Odd stumbled up to bed, Kiwi, Jérémie and Aelita following and three barely touched mugs of coffee left behind to greet them, cold, on the kitchen table the next morning.

Kiwi was asleep near-instantly, curled up on the foot of the bed. Odd wasn't so lucky. His mind strived to escape from everything that had brought him here, veering instead with a shamefully perverse curiosity to the bedroom across the hall. He wondered if they would resume their nightly activities after his off-schedule arrival, lay quietly in the dark expecting telltale bumps and suppressed moans. Only a faint murmuring pushed past a thick blanket of night sounds – traffic and trees and a persistent, dizzying ringing in his own ears – and as sleep wrapped its reassuring hands around him, pulling him into the soft confines of unconsciousness, it occurred to him that, of course, they would be talking about him.

When he woke the next morning, he had approximately ten seconds of peaceful, blissful ignorance until the sledgehammer of memory hit him full force. He lay naked in the tangled sheets, his limbs gratefully warm beneath the covers. The room was awash with lilac light. A wry smile twitched at the corner of Odd's mouth at the realisation that he had gravitated towards the room bedecked in his own colour scheme.

He spied his clothes from the night before huddled in a sodden pile on the floor of the white-tiled ensuite bathroom. The bedroom smelled of a dog that hadn't been let out that morning, but Kiwi was nowhere to be seen.

"Kiwi?"

Silence echoed.

It was this and this alone that pulled Odd out of bed. He kept the thin cotton sheet wrapped around himself, adorning his shoulders like a cloak, and padded down the hallway which emerged as a fog of memory from the night before. Odd felt a glimmer of pride as he made his way past framed photographs and art, many of the latter being his own contributions, prints of artists he appreciated parceled up as a homewarming gift, one or two of his own works sneaked in amongst them.

It had been a long time since he had visited them here, or so it felt like. It was long enough, anyway, for unfamiliar trinkets and photographs to have emerged on and walls and along mantelpieces and tabletops, interesting oddities like new species of plant growing of their own accord in a semi-regularly attended garden. In the kitchen he found a note from Aelita and the reassuring sight of Kiwi trotting by the window. The dog prodded his nose into a bucket which lay on its side amongst a host of gardening utensils in the backyard. Odd watched for a moment, his hands tracing the edge of the note.

 _Odd,_

 _Good morning! Hope you slept well and are feeling better. We let Kiwi out, and we'll be back this evening around six. Help yourself to food, the tv, etc. Jér and I usually get takeout on Thursdays so take a look (menus in top drawer) and see what you'd like._

 _Rest up! You looked very worse for wear yesterday.  
_

 _xx_

He read the note twice over, scrunched it up but paused over the bin, and Aelita's kindness found a home not amongst two-day old potato peelings but instead in the palm of Odd's hand. From there it would later be smoothed out, refolded a little more neatly and preserved in a dust-lined, purple jacket pocket. Next port of call, after a second cast around for Kiwi, was the fridge. Odd found himself starving, and emerged with an armful of sandwich supplies (he hadn't thought to look at a clock since he woke up, but he felt like it was lunchtime) and he took a plate piled high with peanut butter and jam into the sitting room. Odd supposed that Aelita and Jérémie's hospitality probably didn't stretch to guests sprawled naked on their sofa cushions, so he pulled boxers and a long-sleeved hooded sweater from his still-unpacked suitcase (now stowed surreptitiously beneath the stairs) and considered himself, then, suitably dressed for channel-hopping for the next few hours. He watched without seeing. The charismatic hosts, the cheerful advertisements, only threw into sharp relief all the depths of his melancholy.

/

Aelita and Jérémie were late home.

The sound of laughter preceded them, spilling through the opening front door and subsiding gradually as they kicked off shoes and set down briefcases. Jérémie pushed open the living room door and Odd caught the residue of a smile not meant for him. Jérémie ducked his head, adjusting his glasses.

"Hey, Odd. Doing okay?" He sunk into the adjacent chair, fingers scrabbling at his tie.

"I slept all right," Odd countered. "How was work?"

"Not bad," Jérémie and Aelita replied in unison, the latter emerging now in the vacant doorway. "Hello, Odd," Aelita added.

"Yeah, not bad, but it's pretty hectic right now." Tie finally, thankfully, loose, Jérémie began to count off events on his fingers. "We were in a meeting with our marketing director all morning, you wouldn't believe her, and then there was the patent paperwork to be finalised and sent off before lunch..."

"Basically," Aelita cut in, "I think we're ready for this week to be over." She smiled tiredly and Odd suddenly had the answer to his earlier question – having your own house and paid-off mortgage at twenty three is damned hard work – and then they were both asking him if there was anything good on T.V.

Aelita was closest, so Odd passed her the remote. He was expecting something like a documentary and so was relieved when she immediately flicked over to a game show, the contestant taking on a sleight-of-hand magician searching for a key hidden beneath a series of swiftly-rearranged cups. Kiwi wandered in and they didn't object when he curled up on the sofa. Aelita scratched him behind the ears, and Jérémie grinned when Kiwi came over and licked his hand. They didn't comment on how old the dog had become, how much slower his movements. Odd was aware, always so aware. He didn't need reminding.

They ate Chinese food, Odd put on pants and didn't pay for anything, and neither Aelita nor Jérémie had the energy to ask many questions. Sleep evaded Odd, as it usually did these days, and long into the night he felt the weight of things unsaid pressing him down as he stared at the dim ceiling.

Friday was nearly a carbon copy of the day before, with slight variables. Jérémie left the note for Odd, for one, and Odd put chocolate spread on his sandwich, for another. Finally, Aelita and Jérémie arrived home from another day of hard work and success looking a little less pleased to see Odd sitting in front of the TV. Nothing was said, their greetings lacked no warmth, but the slightest frown on Aelita's face, laced through with concern and, Odd noted with a stab of anger which startled him, pity. He curled his legs beneath himself on a pile of cushions, feeling the guilt of a teenager who hasn't done any chores before his parents return home.

He lampshaded this deliberately, setting it down beside his unheralded peace offering of tea and biscuits.

"I should have done something whilst you were out. I didn't know which chores needed doing, but if there's a list-"

They were quick to protest. "No, no. You're a guest here."

"Still. And, thanks for putting me up."

"Any time."

But did any time encompass any _length_ of time, that was the question. Even thinking it made Odd feel ashamed of himself. He didn't deserve to be here, in this suburban house in a bustling, famous, lively city, yet here he was wondering how long he could protract his stay. He didn't deserve... and they- of course _they_ didn't. Sitting here on angularly modern leather sofas in front of these two, immaculately groomed, so far out of his league people, Odd felt grubby and ashamed. Not that he thought it would help even if he had bothered to shower since he'd gotten here. No, this was the kind of deep-seated uncleanliness where all one's faults and insecurities crawled bare across their skin, illuminated all the more for being in the presence of two brilliant people so obviously _better_ than yourself.

And now another question arose, a familiar one that haunted him as of late – when did Jérémie and Aelita (and Ulrich and Yumi and William and Laura) rise so far up, up, up, leaving Odd behind?

"So have you heard from them? Odd?"

"Huh?"

Jérémie quirked an eyebrow ever so slightly. "Yumi and Ulrich," he prompted again. "Do you know how they're doing?"

"Oh. Oh. Yeah, they're doing okay. Last I heard, they were making plans to fly out to England, to visit William. They're doing well. Ulrich's parents have almost recovered from the shock of him dropping out of law school."

"Huh. Only took them two years. Not as long as I thought."

"I feel so bad for him." Aelita sighed. She leaned on the armrest and ran a hand through her hair. It was shorter now, pixie-like. Jérémie's, in what Odd found an amusing contrast, was longer, and curled softly at the nape of his neck. Odd took them both in, admiring this subtle change. It surprised him how old they had all become; he himself still felt like a teenager. Lyoko was a _decade_ ago. The thought sent terror through him like a shockwave and he fought through it with monumental effort, clawing his way back to the present moment in time to add to the ongoing conversation.

"He looks much happier, though," Odd reassured her. "Besides, he's got Yumi and she's as level-headed and organised as ever."

"Yeah. Speaking of..." Aelita's words were lost to an ominous, fading silence at about the same time that a wave of ice washed over Odd's stomach. He made a valiant effort to be subtle about swallowing the nervous lump in his throat. Here it comes, he thought, the way someone afraid of rollercoasters might inform themselves of the upcoming drop. The inevitable.

"Odd. Jéremie and I are here if you need to talk. We haven't pressed the point or anything-"

"Given you time to think it over-"

"-Yes exactly, let you gather yourself and everything. But you haven't made a single stupid joke since you got here and it's been a whole two days. You're not yourself. We're worried about you, that's all. If there's anything we can do to help, anything at all. If it's money, you know we'd-"

"It's not," Odd cut in, bringing himself to his feet with all the graceful ferocity of a scorned cat. "And, I appreciate it-" he made an effort to calm himself, ladling all of his sincerity into his words - "I really, really do, but I just need some space, and some time, to sort a few things out. Anyway." His speech had carried him, without his realising it, to the living room doorway. "I'm going to head up to bed. Goodnight, you two."

He left the room, eyes downcast.

Aelita and Jérémie turned to one another, turning up the volume on the TV to discourage any would-be eavesdroppers lingering on the staircase.

"Well, that went well," said Jérémie.

Aelita chewed her bottom lip and tapped out an anxious rhythm against her knees. "I was hoping he'd open up more. Maybe Ulrich will get more out of him."

"That's what I thought, except... why come to us and not them?"

"You don't think they're..."

Jérémie shrugged. "Could be."

"But Odd and Ulrich never argue," Aelita protested. "If they do, it's over something so inconsequential that they've forgotten it after about five minutes."

"Relationship problems, then?"

"Sissi?"

"It would make sense."

In the relentless pursuit for romantic fulfilment, and without the pitfalls of Lyoko to contend with, Odd had eventually ventured to date Sissi Delmas. It was a chaotic and surprisingly long-lasting relationship, which had fizzled out at last a few months ago when, or so the story went, they had finally run out of things about which to argue. They had both taken it hard, but Sissi at least appeared to be moving on. She was very meticulous about ensuring the entire social networking world was updated minute by minute on all the most mundane details of her existence, and there was nothing horribly telling on any of her profiles.

"Maybe he hasn't fully processed everything with Sissi yet," Aelita said as she thought about this. "I know it's been a while since it ended, but the aftermath of these things can be so painful. Their relationship was so intense."

Jérémie nodded.

"Maybe. Or job issues?"

"He loves his job."

"Well, that's the only other thing I can think of."

Aelita stretched, heaving a sigh as she switched off the television. "All we can do right now is be here for him. He'll come around. We should get in touch with the others, just in case."

Jérémie followed her up to bed. In the dark warmth of their bedroom Aelita cupped his face in her palm and kissed him deeply, her other hand reaching for him beneath the gradual warmth of the sheets.

"Quietly," he hissed, and she laughed softly as she felt him blush. His hands hovered; impatiently Aelita took one and placed it against her breast, moaning gratefully as his fingers kneaded the soft skin there.

If something was amiss in their lovemaking, they put it down to concern for their friend, nothing more.

/

Odd lay awake and berated himself.

 _You haven't cracked a single stupid joke since you got here._

It was true, he realised. And they had come back, exhausted, from a house that neither had clearly had time to dust for a while, with him sitting there, and there was no sugar-coating it, moping. He needed to try harder, to reconstruct some semblance of his old self and hope he would fit back into his personality like a second skin, smoothing out the creases and adjusting himself to fit. He sat up in bed for a while, staring at nothing, trying to conjure some enthusiasm for the upcoming day.

They always seemed to be out of the house long before he woke up; he wondered what time they got up. Stupid o'clock, some ungodly hour where he was still so deeply asleep that the loudest alarm clock in the world couldn't rouse him. Odd felt the emptiness of the house and beyond that the reassuringly normal sounds of the city, Paris already alive and swept up in the routine of another working day. Odd dressed in jeans and a loose shirt, delved in himself for a sense of purpose, and got to work.

There was something reassuring about daily routines, the rhythmic dipping of dishes into soapy water before wiping them dry, sorting mail into piles once it landed on the doormat. He even cooked, recovering some of the old satisfaction he had once enjoyed from coalescing myriad ingredients into something wholesome and satisfying. And he drew, too, forsaking television in favour of a sketchbook. He drew Kiwi until the dog woke up, and he drew the flowers on the hallway table, and he drew – with a little embarrassed nostalgia – elven princesses and boys at computers.


	2. settling

"All I'm saying is, if anyone else had been cast in the role it wouldn't have been as big as it was."

Aelita slung her bag over her shoulder as Jérémie let her in ahead of him through the front gate. She didn't care for the argument one way or another, it was just a stupid movie, but taking a vehement stance in opposition to Jérémie was fun simply for what it was. It was a nice reminder, too, Aelita thought, that amidst a shared business, shared office space, shared lives, they were their own people.

There was another bonus; Jérémie's propensity to argue with such conviction was incredibly sexy.

For his part, Jérémie, following his girlfriend down the impeccable garden path, relished the chance not to talk about business and figures. It was all they had seemed to do lately. This was a welcome reprieve.

"It could have been a sleeper hit," he countered. "I find it hard to believe that people wouldn't appreciate the cinematography, or at least the soundtrack."

"I guess we'll just have to watch it again, won't we?"

Jérémie opened the front door open for her, smiling. "As I recall, we hardly watched it the first time."

She swatted his chest affectionately and they stepped inside.

"Odd?" Aelita called ahead of them. She sniffed the air curiously, breathing in cooking smells that went straight to her stomach, and beneath them the faint tang of furniture polish. Odd emerged, apron on and fish slice in hand. His hair had curled lightly under the caress of steam from the kitchen.

 _Remember to smile._

"Welcome home!" he waved to them with the hand that held the fish slice, and grinned.

He moved fluidly as he slid plates into place on the table, pleased to be engaged with a task he knew so well. He had even folded flowers and animals out of the cloth napkins, and Aelita and Jérémie were extremely impressed. Dinner was, on the whole, an extremely pleasant affair and they drifted on the buzz of good conversation to the living room sofas.

Eventually, somewhere between a movie preview and an advertisement for chocolate-caramel cereal, Odd noticed that his friends had fallen asleep. Jérémie's shirt rode up, crumpled, over his stomach, and Aelita's skirt had twisted until it was on back to front. Again, hard work crossed his mind and here he was, guilt at being here piled high with extra guilt about why he was here, feelings that a day's chores and some cooking couldn't even begin to put a dent in. Without the distraction of their company, the necessity of an audience to spur on his acting, Odd felt the last dregs of energy drain out of him.

He found a laundry cupboard and cast blankets over his friends, fleece catching on an up-current of air as it drifted down slowly to settle over the two prone bodies. Then he poured himself a glass of water, hesitated over the kitchen cabinet where glossy bottles of wine were lined up alongside cut glasses, and finally retired to his room.

It had quickly become routine to wake late in the day to an empty house. Odd, in bed with Kiwi sprawled lethargically across the pillows, did something he hadn't done in a while. He called his mother.

She seemed mildly surprised to hear from him.

"We stopped by your apartment and you weren't at home," she said. "We assumed you'd gone out, but you never showed up. Where are you?"

Odd sighed. Any other parent would have been frantic, but the Della Robbias didn't have it in them to get stressed about anything. He had learned over the years not to take their lack of concern personally.

"I'm in Paris," he admitted.

"Oh?"

"I'm visiting Aelita and Jérémie."

"I see."

He could hear plainly the smirk in her voice, imagined her leaning on a roll of wallpaper with a book of colour samples in her other hand, the smell of fresh paint and wallpaper paste in the air. He didn't actually know what she was doing, but he wouldn't be surprised if their house in Italy was in the processes of yet another spontaneous home renovation. There was music distantly in the background, competing with his father's energetic rendition of a loud Italian opera.

Naturally, the Della Robbias had found out about their supposed niece. Odd remembered clearly how that had gone, the way his heart had jammed in his throat all those years ago when his mobile rung just before he went down to dinner in Kadic's chaotic canteen.

"So you have a cousin?" was all Mrs Della Robbia had said when she had picked up.

"I-I can explain...?"

He couldn't, and knew better than to come up with a lie unless it was a damned good one, but they had chosen the Della Robbias as their cover story for a reason. Contrary to the others' belief, Odd wasn't exaggerating when he had insisted his parents wouldn't care, were so laid-back they were a step away from permanently reclining on the floor. They missed the resentment he felt, and he hid it quietly whilst they congratulated themselves on setting up Aelita's fake identity. As a result of the whole thing, Mr and Mrs Della Robbia had become very much invested over the years in the young Miss Einstein, Jérémie too by extension and by how much Odd talked about them both, and whenever they called Odd they would ask for the latest.

"How are they doing?" Odd's mother asked sweetly.

"Oh you know. Successful as ever. They're doing all the groundwork for launching their new company so they've been working hard. But it's good to see them."

It was good to speak to her, too, Odd found. He didn't have much to say himself but enjoyed hearing about his family's latest escapades, and, considering the size and scope of the Della Robbia clan, there was always a lot of news to catch up on.

"...And that's when your grandmother decided to go skiing. We've sent Louise along to make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble, you know how she is. Anyway, Odd dear, is there anything you needed?"

"I'm fine, Mom. I'm covering the rent and eating okay."

Odd knew he just needed to say the word and he'd have a hefty amount of Euros appear in his bank account. The Della Robbias wanted complete freedom for their son, which, they insisted genially, included the freedom to make mistakes without any serious repercussions. How many people, they said, stopped chasing their dreams, expanding their minds, because of the risk of losing everything? Odd both loved and resented them for it. He had been able to piss away years of his life in an expensive and prestigious boarding school, and repeat the cycle again at university. Whilst Odd lounged around playing video games, Ulrich at least had the decency to worry about his grades, and Jérémie, Yumi, and later Aelita, worked diligently to maintain their scholarships.

Odd shook his head, as though the action would dislodge the guilt that stuck in his brain and coloured everything with a thick grey fog.

"Odd, are you still there?"

He really must stop getting so distracted when people were talking to him.

"Yeah, Mom. Still here. I'm going to go now though. It was good to hear from you."

"You too, dear. You should call more often! I'll tell your father you got in touch."

It was as though that first decision to get up and cook and clean the previous day had unblocked a dam, and the phone call had helped in its own way, and slowly other things began to feel a little easier. So long as he didn't think too much.

On his bed, with his laptop balanced on his knees, Odd decided to brave his emails next. There were messages from Ulrich, William and Yumi, all "just checking in"; Sissi, angry and upset and apologetic (in chronological order) and she'd found some of his old sketchbooks at her place, did he want them back? Then there were potential clients, whose emails he scrolled through with an increasing sense of despair. It still surprised him that people paid him money for his art, his graphic design, the ideas that seemed to come so easily to him but that clients were at a loss to come up with themselves.

It had been living the dream, once. Freelance design let him loose in a world outside of the typical nine to five; Odd could wake at noon and work with his laptop balanced on his knees in front of the television, music blaring at ear-splitting decibels.

Now the lack of of structure irritated him. Inspiration felt out of reach. Odd reflected with mixed feelings on the studio apartment he'd abandoned in a fit of impulsive desperation. He felt irrationally angered sitting here in this house, where he would go downstairs presently and sit surrounded by photos of Jérémie and Aelita and friends of theirs whom he didn't know, yet deep down he knew he couldn't blame the missing motivation on anything but his own sluggish brain.

But life had to move on, and Odd might as well try to move with it. He clicked on the most recent message and began to read.

/

Time passed, gradually and all at once, until suddenly Odd found the few days he intended to stay had stretched into weeks.

There was no mention of this from any of them as they gathered in the kitchen on Saturday morning, all in place for the routine they had carved out for themselves. Aelita stood with her back to the window where a milky mid-morning sunlight flooded the room. Jérémie and Odd sat opposite one another at the wooden table, deep in conversation about some new motoring phenomenon she hadn't heard of. Aelita leaned back and her elbow nudged against the space rack that had appeared on the kitchen counter a day or two earlier, one of the latest in a series of little additions.

The changes to the household were subtle; when Aelita and Jérémie were home Odd seemed less prone to distraction, or else he hid it better; the house was immaculately tidy, dinner was always cooked. New ingredients appeared silently in the fridge.

Aelita, anticipating a long search for her favourite mug, was instead surprised to find it exactly where it should be. Lifting it from the cupboard, she found that Odd had even scoured out the tea stains that had cemented in rings around the bottom.

The thing that was missing, and that it took Aelita a while to notice, was the lack of smell of paint. It had always accompanied Odd, dug under his fingernails and lingered in that studio apartment of his she had visited on occasion. In all the time she had known Odd, she had never known him not to paint.

It was something she had been meaning to mention but there never really seemed to be a good time. Now certainly wasn't it. Maybe today she would get around to mentioning it.

Aelita took the breakfast dishes from the table and added them to the soapy water already filling the sink. She reached across Jérémie for her jacket, slung over one of the chairs. Odd, taking his cue, stood up as well. He pushed his last croissant across the table towards Jérémie.

"Sure you can't ditch your old university friends and wander aimlessly around the streets with Aelita and me today?" he asked. Seeing the others so casually reach out to new acquaintances still surprised him. For the longest time he had found a tight-knit group of five (later six, and seven) who kept their secrets close and rarely interacted with anyone else, completely normal.

Jérémie was distracted by the croissant, picked it up and nibbled the edge with a bemused expression. "Can't, Odd, sorry," he said, voice trailing. Aelita leaned over him, pressed a kiss to his forehead. Jérémie pulled her down towards him, directing his next words close to her ear.

"This is a bit rich coming from me, but make sure Odd gets a decent lunch today, okay?"

Aelita glanced up at the other boy, fussing with Kiwi's collar, and nodded. "You have a good day. We'll be back this afternoon. Ready to go, Odd?"

Odd wore dark jeans and his old purple jacket. Aelita wore indigo trousers with a beaded necklace at her neck and soft, knitted purple sweater. The city had recovered from a recent slew of rainfall and now the mid-morning dawned crisp and clear, sunny but cold with it. Kiwi panted with excitement at the idea of leaving the house but stayed patiently still, tail wagging, as Aelita bent at the gate to fix the leash onto his collar.

"How is work going?" she asked as they made their way along.

Odd felt a knot his stomach tighten at the tons of emails still unread. "Not bad."

As they walked, Aelita would occasionally bump into someone she knew, would wave and smile. She'd link her arm through Odd's to combat the push and pull of the crowds, flocking tourists on their way to the Eiffel Tower, and they took it in turns to hold Kiwi's leash, sometimes pausing to accommodate the dog's interest in some unknown scent on the pavement.

"Thanks for coming with," said Odd. "Though I'm sure you could be doing something more fun with your weekend than this."

She jostled him playfully. "Don't be silly. It's lovely to be out of the house."

Even so, he saw her fingers constantly press against the inside pocket of her jacket where her phone made a conspicuous outline, twitching to check emails and messages.

"You realise you don't have to be glued to that thing," he said, the next time he noticed her doing it.

"Says the guy who spends his life on video games and the Internet when he's not working."

"Hey, that's different. I like the Internet. It's kind of cool knowing I've literally been in it, travelling the same path as millions of pieces of data. Or whatever it was did, back in the day."

"Yeah." Aelita grinned. "When the rest of the world catches up and everyone's travelling at high speed through the Internet, you can claim the bragging rights of doing it first."

Odd laughed. Kiwi trotted up to him suddenly and scratched at Odd's shoes as if acknowledging the increasingly rare sound. The dog's breath was coming quicker, the walk already tiring him.

"Kiwi seems happy," Aelita noted. "How is he?"

"He's deaf in one ear now and his joints aren't what they were. It took him a long time to recover from that operation he had a few years ago, remember? But he is happy. I spoil him, you know, I always have."

He was embarrassed to find sudden tears pricking at his eyelids, words blocked by the lump in his throat.

Aelita's hand was light on his shoulder.

"He's had a good life, Odd."

"I know."

Kiwi had lived an exceptionally long time, the upper bracket of his breed's expected lifespan, yet the fact that his life had to end at all was terribly unfair. Kiwi had been a puppy when they took him from the rescue centre, when Odd had sensed that this dog more than any other needed a second chance. Kiwi had been with Odd through everything and the idea of him simply not being there was difficult to imagine, when so much of the dog's needs were tied up in Odd's daily routine. He couldn't count the times that Kiwi needing to be walked or fed had got Odd out of bed, or the times when Odd hadn't even managed that, and Kiwi had been there anyway, not judging or resenting but simply loving.

These days, Odd looked at Kiwi and saw time inching forward, towards an event from which Odd could never come back.

He had had such mastery over time once. The power to cheat death by seconds, to know what his classmates were going to say and have the perfect response ready because he'd heard it all before. He had youth and health, and the certainty that he didn't need to look past the few school years that were already mapped out for him.

Sometimes he was reminded just how much that power was lost to him.

/

 _(The factory. March, 2010.)_

It was so cold.

Odd's feet were ice, his breath left him in thick wisps of mist with each slow step towards the factory. Clawed feet scratched at his stomach as Kiwi's warm body wriggled beneath Odd's jacket. Odd leaned his head forward, felt the tip of a cold wet nose against his cheek.

"Sssh, boy. We're almost there."

What surprised Odd most, after that careful slide on the rope swing and the loud, echoing thud as he hit the floor, was how the factory felt so much smaller than he remembered it. He didn't have to reach up to push the lever, and could swing himself easily into the supercomputer chair. The great machine came to life slowly, buttons blinking as though bewildered that anyone had remembered this place at all.

Odd placed his fingers on the keys and they came away coated with dust. He blew it away, great clouds swirling up in the air, typing away to load up the programmes and surprised just how much he remembered. Jérémie had been a good teacher.

Odd unzipped his jacket, repositioned Kiwi on is lap and pressed his face into the dog's fur.

"You'll be safe here, boy. Nothing can hurt you on Lyoko any more." A world without danger, just as Franz Hopper had intended.

Methodically, carefully, he set up the delayed virtualisation sequence. Scooped Kiwi up in his arms, made the slow descent towards the scanner room with his harsh yellow light where the middle door stood open, waiting.

Odd's voice was barely a whisper.

"Are you ready?"

He wasn't sure who he was asking; Kiwi or himself.

He looked at the white tomb of the scanner, remembered Aelita when they first found her and how she'd spent over a year trapped in that vast virtual wasteland, walking an endless cycle of forest, mountain, desert and ice, waiting for someone to rescue her. He thought about Kiwi, who loved the smells of the city and who chased squirrels in the park, who loved the morning sun and evenings at home pressed up against the sofa cushions. He thought about the operation and how it might fail, and how it might not. And how utterly selfish it would be to keep Kiwi here, rather than risk letting him go.

Kiwi craned his head upwards and licked Odd's hand.

"Could I do this to you?" Odd asked him. Kiwi blinked, barked once, softly.

Moments later he was in the elevator, watching it close on the scanner door. And Kiwi was still in his arms.

The supercomputer in darkness once more, and when Odd stepped out into the night the tears on his cheeks were snatched up by the chill wind.

He hadn't even realised that he was crying.

/

 _(Present day.)_

Their next stop was the supermarket. Aelita meandered with purpose, heading straight for the baked goods aisle to stock up on the croissants she had been snacking on throughout the week. She was hesitating over two varieties of chocolate spread when Odd tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey Aelita. Don't look now but the bass guitarist from the Subsonics is right behind us."

Naturally she turned around, just as the bearded man behind them did. Seconds later the two were stepping into a hug with chorused greetings of "Ben!" "Aelita!", and Odd remembered how she had kept in touch with the band from years and years ago. Now he found himself an awkward accessory to an old acquaintanceship and, after a minute or two of hovering on the fringes of their conversation, ducked into the next aisle in search of snacks for Kiwi.

Ben said something and Aelita was laughing. The conversation seemed to last a lifetime; just as Odd thought it was going to end, Ben would add something else and they would start up again. It didn't help that other shoppers, realising they were in the midst of a celebrity, were sneaking glances out of the corners of their eyes. Odd wandered aimlessly, cold beneath the relentless blast of air conditioning.

"So where are you living now, did you say?" Ben was asking.

"Oh, we're in the city, not too far from here. Depending on how things go with our new business, we're thinking of moving out of the country. New York, maybe."

 _New York?_ Odd's heart leapt. This was news to him.

"It's barely an idea so far," Aelita added. "My boyfriend and I haven't talked about it much yet. We have to get past planning my birthday first." She laughed. "Say, would you and Chris and Nico like to come?"

He asked for the date and shook his head with genuine disappointment when Aelita supplied it. "We have a gig that night. Charity thing."

"Oh well. Don't worry about it."

"We'll take you out to dinner the week after, how about that? The guys would love to hear about how you've been getting on. Do you have my new phone number? Here," Ben held out his hand for Aelita's phone and keyed it in. There was a murmuring somewhere behind Odd, who turned to see a group of teenagers staring at Aelita with something between awe and envy.

"Give me a call next time you're free."

Aelita nodded, trying not to seem too overwhelmed. "Thank you, I will. It was lovely to see you again."

Odd had run out of aisle to traverse and found himself back at Aelita's side. Ben flashed a smile at him, but it was the polite, accomodating smile that celebrities reserved for journalists and fans. "Hey." He frowned slightly. "Have you I seen you before?"

"I'm Aelita's friend. We've probably met at some point-"

The teenagers were on the move, having acquired a pen and some paper between them, and Ben nodded to them before turning back to Aelita. "Looks like I should get going. Be seeing you."

"Well that was nice," Aelita said a little breathlessly as they left the supermarket with their bags in hand. It was lunchtime, the sun had come out, and pedestrians were swapping jackets for sunglasses and ice cream. "Sorry it got a little awkward for you there. It can be a bit weird, with all those people staring. He;s just a person, you know?"

"Yeah."

Odd thought about how the Subsonics' music had played on repeat through his Walkman in the long year before his transfer to Kadic, and for some time afterwards. It was a little jarring to have someone's face hang on a poster over your bed for years, then suddenly see them in person.

"So the Subsonics are taking you to dinner? That's cool."

Aelita flushed with delight. "Yeah."

They found their way to the park, and despite Jérémie's request that they eat something substantial for lunch, indulged in ice cream and crepes. They let Kiwi loose and he trotted ineffectually over the grass before giving up and curling under a bench to sleep.

Aelita dropped her bags and sank down gratefully. "I've missed having Kiwi around, you know," she said. "I don't suppose I had any pets when I was little. I don't remember, anyway, so if anyone ever asks I find myself telling them I had a dog, since it felt like Kiwi kind of belonged to all of us."

"I felt like that too."

During the natural breaks in conversation, Aelita took to watching the people around them. She saw two women holding hands, a child ducking beneath them with her ponytail bouncing. Sometimes Aelita saw the adults in their lives – the older ones, in their mid-thirties with life experience and families – and the thought would flit across her mind that she should be there with them. In times like those, she felt a great disconnect from the rest of the world, and wondered if she could apply that to what Odd was going through.

She turned towards him and saw him flicking through a pack of playing cards that he'd pulled from his pocket. Aelita couldn't help but smile; was it so bad, she thought, to be glad that Odd had stayed the same? Despite everything, she sensed Odd was still his same self underneath, the joker, the life and soul of the party. If only he could remember it.

The same way that a particular song reminded someone of a memory, Odd's presence brought a tumult of feelings rising to the surface in Aelita, untapped possibilities and the thought of what might have been. She was happy of course, just sentimental in a way that Jérémie wasn't. Aelita had ensured her own happiness, done a great many interesting things and planned to do thousands more. But still, sitting here with Odd, watching him try to build a house of cards on the curved surface of the bench between them, set the old thoughts spinning into motion.

"Remember that time we pranked your sisters with paint balloons?"

Odd's eyes glazed over as he mentally sought after the memory, then a small grin worked its way onto his face. "Oh, yeah. Didn't they TP our rooms after that?"

"Yep. And swapped your hair gel for... tanning lotion, I think?"

Aelita was laughing, but stopped when she noticed Odd wasn't.

"I always got the impression those prank wars bothered you more than you let on. Am I right?"

Odd shrugged. "It was fun when you were there. Otherwise it was just me against them and it got tiring after a while. They were jerks, they just didn't know any better."

Being 'cousins', and Aelita spending so much time with Odd and his family, these were some of the many memories that existed just between them. There were more- hours spent in music stores admiring equipment they couldn't possibly afford, swimming in the sea, Odd teaching Aelita to draw. There was one summer that especially stood out to Aelita. She thought back to shady alcove hidden by trees, Odd in a white shirt and her in a pink dress.

She had almost kissed him then, knowing full well what it meant.

It had been an exhilarating, delightful, confusing summer. But it was lost to the past now, like so many other things.

Odd gave up on the house of cards at last, gathered them all quickly into a pile and stuffed them back in his pocket. Aelita filled the space between them.

"Can't be bothered," he said, meaning the cards.

"I know," she replied.

"Hey, Aelita."

"Yeah?"

He looked directly at her and wound an arm around her shoulder. "I missed you."

She leaned into him, inhaling Jérémie's borrowed cologne. She embraced, cautiously, this merging of two people, Odd's body and Jérémie's scent, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I missed you too," Aelita breathed. "Oh, Odd. You disappeared for a long time you know."

"Sorry."

Aelita shook her head, drew back from him a little. "Don't. I get it. I did the same once too, remember?"

Odd remembered all too well.

It was a strange coincidence, one they couldn't possibly be aware of, but it so happened that Jérémie had recently been thinking about the exact same thing.

/

 _(Kadic Academy. Summer, 2009.)_

"I'm leaving," she said flatly. Her eyes flickered anywhere, everywhere but him, their movement at odds with the rest of her body which was poised in the centre of his room, ramrod straight.

"You're what? Leaving where?"

"I'm not going to university. With you." Aelita paused to let this sink in, mouth twisted in guilt. "I'm sorry, Jérémie."

He was aware of his own mouth gaping slightly, her words echoing off the blankness inside his head. He shook himself, as though the motion could shake the confusion loose.

"I don't- Why?" Jérémie asked. "Which university are you going to instead?"

"I'm not."

He stared at her. Her eyes met his for a second, something unreadable in her expression, before they fixed upon her shoes.

"You're not going to university?"

"Not yet, anyway."

"Then, when? Aelita, we were going together, we were always going together, that's the plan."

"Yes, well," Aelita said briskly, "I've changed my mind about the plan. I'm making my own plans." The way she said it, he should have realised that all this time he'd been planning without her, assumed her compliance and enthusiasm was implicit in his. Hindsight's realisation flooded him, but mingled with it was indignation. Why not? It was the best choice, clearly, for both of them. What else would she do?

He asked her this, rising from his chair as he did so, and anger flashed over her face. Jérémie fought the urge to step back, aware with startling clarity just how much frustration bubbled beneath the surface of that small, tense frame.

"What am I going to do?" Aelita echoed, voice cracking slightly on the last syllable. "You know what, Jérémie? I don't know." She threw her hands up in exasperation. "I don't actually know, to the letter, how I'm going to live the rest of my life. And I'm okay with that."

A soft 'oh' escaped him, a barely audible, involuntary sound. A million questions raced through Jérémie's head but the rest of him was numb, the thoughts unable to make it to his mouth. Something about the way he stood there tugged at something in Aelita, and her whole being softened.

"I just want to find myself, for a while. Figure out who I am, on my own." From nerves to guilt, to anger and now finally, she was skidding to a halt at tears, stubbornly pricking at her eyelids. Aelita exhaled, a long, shuddering breath, and allowed them to fall. Jérémie watched them slide silently down her cheeks, gathering in droplets at her chin until, too heavy, they burst in tiny splashes onto the skin at her open collar.

"I love you," she said hoarsely. "I love you so much, Jérémie. But this-" she waved one hand, the gesture not enough to cover the vast, overwhelming mundanity of her life, with its lingering shadows of the past and its myriad questions unanswered - "this isn't enough for me any more."

In the silence that followed she had taken hold of his hands. Now she opened her fingers and released them, where they swung to his sides, as numb and unresisting as the rest of him.

The door clicked shut softly behind her.

Jérémie stood where he was for a long time.

School finished for good the next day, an overstated affair of tearful farewells. All around him classmates were hugging, loading suitcases into cars, exchanging phone numbers and email addresses on torn scraps of paper. Through the crowd of school leavers, Milly and Tamiya could be seen brandishing notepads and cameras. Jérémie had performed the process of packing with little interest, his thoughts far away as he methodically stowed away clothes, books, CDs. His computer was the last thing to go and it was when this was dismantled - leaving in its place a vast expanse of empty desk which would, in a few weeks' time, house some new students' homework - that the finality of this departure hit him.

He opened his door to find Odd, Ulrich and Yumi waiting for him. William couldn't make it but Yumi, visiting her parents, had taken the chance to see them off and catch up with old friends and teachers.

Jérémie cringed beneath their obvious concern. It struck him suddenly that they had known about Aelita's plans long before he had, and that idea that she had been so afraid of telling him sent an almost-physical pang through him.

"Where's Aelita?" he asked. They hadn't spoken since yesterday afternoon's announcement. Now, he was sorely regretting it.

"She's downstairs. She was talking to Jim about something, but-" Ulrich hesitated, "she said she'd meet us, if that's all right."

Jérémie knew his relief was plastered plainly across his face. "Yes," he said. "Yes, that's fine." He was irritated with her, but he wouldn't miss her going for the world.

His friends all shared the burden of his packed up boxes, moving ahead of him in the direction of the crowded stairwell. Ulrich's free hand pressed down his shoulder as he passed and Yumi offered him a tiny smile. Odd hung back, watching Jérémie lock the door for the final time, pocketing the key that would be handed in at the school's reception area in the very final stages of leaving.

"It's completely stupid, what she's doing," Jérémie said, facing the closed door. From the corner of his eye, Odd shrugged.

"We all need one of those moments, of being completely stupid. At least one."

There was the faintest shadow of something familiar about this moment, both were thinking. Something fleeting and vague on the periphery of a memory neither could quite capture. Another time, another place, they'd been here before.

Jérémie turned to Odd.

"She'll be okay, right?"

If there was anyone who could understand the depth of what he felt for that girl, it was Odd Della Robbia, Odd, who loved everyone close to him with the fiercest intensity. A thoughtful silence lingered, until Odd's face broke into its easy grin and Jérémie felt a bubble of grateful elation rise up in his chest at the sight. Shifting the box he held under one arm, Odd slung the other around Jérémie's shoulders.

"'Course she will, Einstein. Of course she will."

They fought through the crowds and emerged, more or less together, into Kadic's sun-drenched courtyard where Mr Gauthier, Mr Belpois and the Sterns waited amongst hundreds of harried parents beside their cars. Aelita appeared behind them with a smile that faltered only slightly when she saw Jérémie, and they put everything else aside in anticipation of hugs and goodbyes. Then the others were gone, Mr Belpois flashed his son a conspiratorial smile and suddenly remembered that he needed to use the bathroom, and at last it was the two of them, alone.

It was enough for a moment just to look at her, her face slightly pink, small suitcase beside her. Then Jérémie spoke.

"I don't like that you're doing this."

"I don't care."

She blinked; her abruptness astonished them both.

Jérémie heaved a sigh. There wasn't much he could say in response to that, nothing that wouldn't start an argument, anyway, so he simply said: "Fair enough."

"This isn't about you, Jérémie," Aelita's words left her in a rush, "Well, I suppose it is a little bit, but-"

"Just keep in touch," he pleaded. "Don't... forget me."

"I won't. Of course I won't."

He reached out a hand with a jerky, uncertain movement, but Aelita didn't resist when he placed it on her shoulder. She shrugged slightly beneath the touch, a silent acknowledgement.

"Be careful."

"I will," she said. "Have a good year."

She turned, suitcase skipping on the gravel behind her, and walked, into a crowd that swallowed her within moments, straight out of his life.

Jérémie sat in the car and waited for his father.

The drive home was a long, monotonous blur. Jérémie dutifully fielded his father's questions, lied where appropriate, laughed when necessary. The world passed by, bright and alive, and he wondered how one minute he could be so blissfully happy - XANA gone, every university he had applied to desperate to have him, the next stage of his life on the horizon with Aelita in tow - and the next, so disconnected from everything. He should tell his parents, probably, about Aelita's decision, but he chose to live with the truth close to his chest for a little while, fighting off the moment when it would all become real.

Three weeks into a long, hot summer, part of him still hoped she'd turn up at his doorstep. She remained enigmatic in her texts, reassuring him of her safety but little else. Jérémie distracted himself by spending time with Yumi and Odd, grateful for their unexpected visits. Ulrich had sympathised with Aelita, Yumi saw both sides of the situation, William thought it was kind of hilarious.

And then - he could hardly believe it - things grew easier.

The job helped; part-time work in a computer repair shop where he found it gradually easier to talk to people, where he found that enjoyed being the centre of attention and a source of admiration ("you seen this kid?" the manager would exclaim, "he's some kind of genius!") and enjoyed even more that someone would almost always pay for a round of ice-creams for their small team on Friday afternoons. Time became, not something that stretched intermittently between one daily chore and the next, but something he took pleasure in spending on himself - he would walk sometimes, for no reason at all other than enjoying the fresh air, his scrawny pre-adolescent body

shaping into hints of unexpected muscle, or cook, or help his mother set up her new laptop - and the pain of abandonment lessened.

The next academic year rolled around, with Jérémie more prepared for the changes to his life than he had ever thought possible. Stress and worry had been a years-long habit that Jérémie was finally beginning to break. Grades had never been a problem for him after all, and things like money and finding your way in a big city were nothing after full-time pressure to save the world. Jérémie had been pleasantly surprised, upon going to university, to find that people had actually liked him – girls included – and there was something to be said for making it on your own.

Then, on an otherwise inconsequential day towards the end of his second semester, he had spotted a flash of pink in a streetside café, and her name had tumbled from his lips before he could catch himself. She had broken off mid-conversation, spun around, and thrown herself uncompromisingly into his arms.

They were both grateful to find the other not quite as they remembered them, but sharper, bolder, more fully grown into themselves.

/

 _(Present day.)_

Odd remembered how weird things had been when Aelita had left. Jérémie's despair, Yumi's quiet worry. Ulrich's reluctance to admit that he'd been to visit her. And Odd, how he had stayed awake at night playing mental chess with their lives – where would they be three moves from now? If Odd had to choose between his friends, would he? How?

Odd had never discovered the answer.

Now, he stood, stretched, clipped Kiwi's leash back onto his collar. The day had slid gradually into late afternoon, and weather was beginning to turn again.

It was time to go.

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter makes subtle references to both Recollections, Chapter 20: Second Chance, and Scrapbook. :)_


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